


All That Glitters

by Dionysiaca



Series: Cats and Dogs [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Christmas Tree Decorating, Christmas decor, Dorian Has Issues, Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kittens, M/M, Sam returns!, and the kitties and Niko...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:46:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5505236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dionysiaca/pseuds/Dionysiaca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian and Cullen have different tastes in Christmas ornaments, and different memories of Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Glitters

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas to all my lovely readers. Especial thanks to my beta reader, WitchoftheWaste, who suggested Christmas decorations and insisted on having Josie and Leliana in it somewhere. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

The six Lalique ornaments looked perfect in blue spruce; they were satiny red, the deep red of a mouth, and ice-white, like sugar. 

And the clear blown glass baubles were in place; each bore a handpainted snowflake, mathematically exact. 

And then the twelve Hermès baubles, all soft aqueous green.  He moved one of them a little to the left.

Plus the low-hanging crystal spirals, icicles of glass.

He’d ordered the tree in advance.  You had to be careful not to end up with a scrawny little sapling. 

The tree stood in a basket, wicker and straw, with a single wide silver ribbon tied around.   Was the ribbon too much?   There were only two ways to decorate a tree, really – very elegant and expensive, or Max Kitsch with hectic tinsel – ideally pink – and many Santa Claus ornaments to clash with it.  Glitter spray, of course… 

He looked once more at the slim beauty of his tree. No, far better this way.  He didn’t like a lot of sparkle.  Just thinking that word made his stomach tighten. Stupid to go on remembering the kid at school who called him Sparkler.  A well-meaning kid, actually.  It was the way the nickname stuck and got picked up by others.

He brushed the memory away, and began to think about garlands. One was on order to hang above the fireplace.  Would one be enough? The fireplace was medium sized, stone and brick, with a wide chimney… would a single garland look meagre?  Ther was nothing worse than a meagre-looking Christmas.  And what about the wine, on its way from Berry Brothers and Rudd?  Three Bordeaux, all of them deuxième crus, and two sauternes – the slightly inferior Chateau Suduiraut because Yquem was a bit of a cliché.  And twelve bottles of champagne for the party.  

He’d also laid in some single malts.  He had ordered the canapés.

He also knew that Cullen would not really care about any of it. 

But what to put on top of the tree?  The ironic angel would spoil the perfect minimaloism. The star he’d ordered was the wrong shape; it had already been returned to Harrods.  He wanted something spiky, and the star on inspection was cuddlesome. 

And he had the presents too.  A new collar for Sam. A box of squeaking and clockwork toys for the demon spawn, bless them, plus catnip mice.  And for Cullen, a fleece-lined aviator jacket, and a long, soft cashmere scarf, palest bluegrey, and a bottle of single malt. And tickets to Reykjavik.  And none of it was quite right, really, and he also knew, but would not let himself know, that Cullen would be happy with something he’d picked up on a market stall, because he was like that; he didn’t seem to need style to defend himself from memory.

Enviable.

By contrast, Dorian was always maimed by the ghosts of Christmasses past.  The time he’d painted a small landscape for his father, and his father saying, ‘Pretty work. You are becoming a nice little hobbyist, aren’t you?’ The time his mother had caught him making out with one of the Santa elves she’d hired.  The time ditto with one of the hired bar staff, at the very moment when the young Dorian had just spilled himself on the boy’s upturned, wet face, and in the ice of his mother’s glare his dick had just gone on and on and on, spasming.   His mother’s ringed hand coming up to slap not him, but the barboy, hard, and her voice, ordering him out of her house. 

So stupid to keep remembering. 

And this Christmas especially he wanted to shut out that past. He would have to go in for dialysis after Christmas, and be greeted by plastic holly and cheery ward sisters and small trees with coloured lights. 

Which would be vile beyond words. 

But it would have to be endured.  He’d be fortified by the party beforehand.  The party, where everything, everything would be right.

Just in case.  So if he actually died, inconsiderately, everyone would say at his funeral that they would miss his parties.  So he would have done one perfect thing. 

It had to be worthy of Cullen too.  A man with a perfectly beautiful blond lover had to look as if he deserved his luck.  Anything less tempted the gods. 

He knew the terrible old stories of men who accidentally lost their immortal lovers by wandering away stupidly. This Christmas, he wanted to bind Cullen to him with silken threads of memory, velvet chains of beauty, even though he also knew that Cullen would never notice the effort he’d made.  _He_ would know, and that would be enough. 

\-----

When the room was full of people, and the fire was lit, and the candles were giving off their spiced scents, and all seven of the cats were romping between the visitors, or curled up in their baskets beside the fire, and Sam, dearest Sam, was begging for the foie gras canapés, and wolfing them down, and wagging his tail, and Dorian did feel special.  He did the rounds arm in arm with Cullen, and there was one point where he felt a spike of joy and, oh, _belonging_ , so huge and enormous that it hurt more than _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , where he felt, like the character in that, George Bailey, as if he had reshaped the world and _made it better_ – well, prettier, anyway.

And then he heard a woman’s laugh. 

‘My dear Dorian. I had no idea you had artistic talent!’ she was pointing to the tree. _His_ perfect tree.  Her long fingernail picked out an ornament that Dorian had not put there.  Definitely not. 

It was the very rough, clay image of a boot.  Well, it was like a boot. Painted red.  And a shabby little dust of sparkly glitter across the ankle of it.  It was heavy enough to pull the branch down.    

‘It’s charming,’ said the woman.  Her name was Vivienne.  She was excruciatingly dressed, in a suit jacket so tight and low cut that it was like a parody of work clothes.  ‘Hermès, Lalique - and little Dorian Pavus.’  She laughed agaiun. Dorian began to feel his face flame. 

The icy voice went on.  ‘Oh, and there’s a _cow_.  Not following the concept here.  Does the cow need a boot? Look, everyone. Isn’t it sweet?’ 

There was, indeed, a cow.  A brown clay cow. 

There was an amused sound from everyone.  Dorian found his hands were clenched into tight balls. 

‘Vivvie, that’s mean,’ said Leliana, glancing at Dorian.  ‘A lot of people have ornaments from their childhood.’ 

‘Of course they do,’ said Josie kindly.  ‘Dorian, did you make this when you were small?’ 

‘No, I did,’ said Cullen.  ‘And the cow too. My sisters have a set of them as well.  We made them on the farm one year when there was a big storm and we were all snowed in, and Mum, being mum, made us some modelling clay from salt and flour, and found us some old paint and glitter.’

Murmurs of mildly patronising approval.   

Dorian drew in his breath.  ‘Well, it’s lovely that you put them on the tree, though it might have been nice to ask me.’ 

‘I – thought you’d be pleased.  It – makes it more our tree.’ 

‘Yes, it definitely does.’ 

People were staring.  Dorian tried to bring his temper under control. 

He drew Cullen aside. ‘I thought we’d agreed that I was going to do the tree?’

‘We did. You did. And all I did was add two ornaments.’ 

‘You heard Vivienne. She made us look like idiots. She made _me_ look like an idiot.’

‘She was just being herself.  I think you did a great job.’ 

‘I _did_ a great job.  But I don’t think the new additions improve it.’  He found his voice had cracked a little on the word _improve._

 He felt Cullen’s eyes on him.  ‘Outside,’ he said.  They slid out into the frosty night.  The wind was so cold it hurt. 

Cullen’s hands were warm on Dorian’s face.

‘You know what? That tree was perfect. It was perfect the way you are perfect. You have perfect looks and you are a perfect lover and you are a perfect boy with a perfect body, and you always want to be that.  But the new ornament are imperfect the way I am imperfect.  I’m shabby and I’m often clumsy and my head isn’t right, and when you say you don’t need _them_ , I feel like you are saying you don’t need _me_.’

Dorian felt his throat close.  ‘But I - I do need you.’ He pulled Cullen close.  The kiss was a deep one, and neither wanted to let go.

As they broke apart, Dorian said, ‘You know the horrible truth? I’m jealous.  Green poison jealous. You had such a happy childhood. You can bear to remember it. I - ’ 

Cullen’s arms were around him again, and his mouth tender on the lips he silenced. 

‘You can share my ornaments,’ he whispered. ‘I can share your perfect polished ones, and you can share my shabby old ones.’ 

Dorian felt the hot tears well in his eyes.  ‘That sounds amazingly like ‘I love you.’’

‘It should.  Because I do love you.  This is our first Christmas together, and it might be our last, and if I live for sixty years I’ll always put my shabby old sock ornament next to a shining green porcelain bauble on my tree, and I will always, always remember.’ 

Now they were both in tears, both kissing the salt from one another, both holding each other warm and desperate. 

A star fell behind Cullen’s head. 

‘Time to go back in.’ 

Dorian walked in with his head held high. He cuddled Sam, who licked his hand with his enormous pink tongue.  He picked up Zophiel from where he was hiding and cradled him, plucked Azazel off the middle branches of the tree, swept up the broken crystal bauble, laughed.  And laughed and laughed. 

\----

The party had been a success.  The night after, even more so; there are few things as lovely as champagne gone flat at 2 in the morning after some very very wonderful and not at all silent lovemaking.  Now everyone was sleeping, in the warm ease of satisfaction.  Cats sleeping all over the place, in cupboards and behind cupboards.  Sam sleeping beside the bed.  Niko sleeping on the top shelf of the airing cupboard, as of royal right, full of the Sevruga caviar Dorian had bought her ‘to make her blacker’. And Cullen’s head on Dorian’s chest and shoulder. 

\----

Opening presents gives great joy to cats.  For them, the paper is the main event.  Paper can be pounced on and claws can rip it. 

Christmas TV, not so much.  Sam was the one who sympathised when both Dorian and Cullen teared up over Judy Garland singing ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas’. 

‘We’ll have to muddle through somehow, too,’ Cullen said, his arm around Dorian.  ‘Let’s take Sam for a walk.’

\----

Dusk on Christmas Day saw them all sitting by the fire, Cullen still wearing a scarf and the new aviator jacket. 

And Dorian holding a teddy bear. 

‘I am so glad you like him.’

‘I adore him.  Shall I call him Aloysius?  No, that might be a bit too much. How about Saville?  As in Saville Row?’

‘I’m just glad you like him.’ Cullen stroked Sam’s head. 

‘You are marvellous. And he’s - absolutely perfect.’

‘Merry Christmas, my love.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> All the Christmas ornaments in the story are real.  You can google them. Our cats climbed the tree this year.  So that’s real too.


End file.
